R. A. Torrey: The Sentence His Mother Said He Could Not Outrun
At fifteen, R. A. Torrey stood in the doorway of his family home in Hoboken, New Jersey, and told his mother he was finished with her Bible and finished with her praying. She did not raise her voice or argue a single point. She said one sentence to his back as he walked out, and it followed him for years like a stone in his shoe.
A Mother’s Prayer Outlasts the Argument
Reuben Archer Torrey entered Yale at fifteen, read the skeptics, and found their arguments convincing. The faith of his childhood came apart in his hands. His mother kept praying anyway, day after day, for a son who had told her plainly to stop. She had said that a day would come when he reached the end of his own resources, and on that day he would call out to her God, and her God would answer. She had no way of knowing when. She prayed into the silence.
God Meets Us at the End of Ourselves
The day came. Everything Torrey had built his life on gave way underneath him, and in the middle of one long night his mother’s sentence came back to him. He called out, and God answered. Psalm 34:6 says, This poor man cried out, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. God did not wait for Torrey to clean himself up or win the argument. He met him at the bottom, which is where He does some of His best work.
Keep Praying for the One Who Walked Away
Torrey went on to lead the Bible Institute of the Chicago Evangelization Society, which we know today as Moody Bible Institute. He pastored the church that became Moody Church. He served as dean of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, now Biola University, and pastor of the Church of the Open Door. From 1902 to 1906 he circled the world with song leader Charles Alexander. Australia. India. Japan. Great Britain. By careful estimates, more than a hundred thousand people professed faith in Christ.
When people asked Torrey how it happened, he never credited his preaching. Before he ever set foot in Melbourne, believers there had organized thousands of small prayer meetings in homes across the city. Torrey said the revival was prayed down before it was preached. The man who told the world to pray got his start because one woman would not stop.
Your Prayer Is Standing in the Dark Waiting for Them
Somebody has told you to stop praying for them. Maybe not in those words. Maybe they just stopped answering. James 5:16 says, The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. A prayer does not expire when the argument ends. It waits through the running years and the years when nothing seems to be happening. Then one night, when the floor gives way under that person, your prayer is already standing in the dark waiting for them.
Keep praying. You may not get to see the answer arrive. Torrey’s mother had no idea she was praying for a man who would take the gospel around the world.
And that, friend, is how God lifts up your day.